cinnamon

Truecinnamon comes from a shrub originally grown in Sri Lanka. Most of the cinnamon that you buy at the grocers is actually cassia. Cassia comes from the bark of a laureltree that is closely related to the true cinnamon shrub. Cassia has a heavier, bitter flavor. It is also used in Chinese Five-Spice powder. You normally have to go to a specialty store for real cinnamon.

Cinnamon is a strong spice with a warm taste. It is quite tasty in small quantities, but almost impossible to stomach in larger doses.

Cinnamon has long been a popular spice. It was even mentioned in the Old Testament, although it did not come into common use in Western Europe until the 1700s. It comes from the bark of the Cinnamomum Zeylanicum which is a tree native to Sri Lanka. This cinnamon is usually called Ceylon Cinnamon as Ceylon is the old name for Sri Lanka. There are a few other species of cinnamon as well, such as Indonesian cinnamon (Cinnamomum burmannii), Cassia (Cinnamomum cassia), Vietnamese cinnamon (Cinnamomum loureirii), and Indian bay leaf (Cinnamomum tamala). The Ceylon variety is considered to be the real cinnamon, but all of these are often sold as cinnamon, with Cassia being the most common.

Cinnamon is used heavily in food preparation in both Sri Lanka and India. It is especially popular in beef curry and for use in flavoring tea. This spice had its height of popularity in the west somewhere around the 17th century. Today in the Western world it is really only used in desserts, which are often fruit based.

Most countries tend to use cinnamon in powdered form, and they apply it right before serving the dish. This is done because cinnamon can become bitter quickly if cooked for too long. But in India they prefer to use their cinnamon whole, where it is often fried in hot oil and combined with vegetables or yogurt.

The cinnamon plant also bears a fruit as well. This fruit must be harvested before it ripens and must be ground up until it is little more than a powder. This cinnamon fruit is really only used in China and in the Kutch region of India.

Cassia is more widely used because it is slightly easier to harvest than true cinnamon and therefore is cheaper to produce. Both cinnamon and cassia barks are stripped from trees and dried, except that cinnamon undergoes and extra refining step of having the outer bark rotted off, leaving the delicate inner bark behind. Both the inner and outer bark are left on cassia quills, and as a result it is a coarser product. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission says that both can be sold as cinnamon.

The inner bark of the shoots of Cinnamomum Zeylanicum, a tree growing in Ceylon. It is aromatic, of a moderately pungent taste, and is one of the best cordial, carminative, and restorative spices.

(b)

Cassia.

Cinnamon stoneMin., a variety of garnet, of a cinnamon or hyacinth red color, sometimes used in jewelry. -- Oil of cinnamon, a colorless aromatic oil obtained from cinnamon and cassia, and consisting essentially of cinnamic aldehyde, C6H5.C2H2.CHO. -- Wild cinnamon. See Canella.